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Considering Titan X

I

iCrayon

n00b
Joined
Apr 1, 2012
Messages
33
Was debating on building a whole new machine from the bottom up with a Titan X, or throw a Titan X into my current system. Anyone have any input on the Pros/Cons of going with a completely new build vs upgrading from a GTX 680 SC to a GTX Titan X SC?

Current Build:

i7 2700k@4.5ghz (h80 water cool)

ASUS P8Z68-V LX LGA 1155 Mobo

GTX 680 SC (EVGA)

G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB DDR3 1600

CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX750 V2 750W PSU

120GB intel 520 SSD (plan on getting a 512GB samsung pro series)

I know my mobo/cpu combo only supports pcie 2.0 but from what I have heard and read there is little to no difference in most games. Also I do not plan on going SLI, so I wouldnt need the additional pci lanes that would come with a new mobo/cpu combo.

My thought on this is, if I build a new rig im looking at around $2500-$3000 (5820k or 5930k, 16GB DDR4, Titan X)

or I could drop the money on just he Titan X for my current system.

Thanks in advance for reading/replying I appreciate the feedback =D
 
There's no point in buying a titan x anymore. Get the Asus strix 980 ti instead.
 
5150Joker said:
There's no point in buying a titan x anymore. Get the Asus strix 980 ti instead.
Click to expand...

The thing is, when the time comes where more than 6GB of vram is required for a game I dont want to buy another card or run SLI. Thanks for the input but I am looking more for opinion of putting that card(or even a 980 ti) into my current system.
 
You could just get a 980 ti now and see if Skylake finally makes it worth replacing an overclocked Sandy Bridge CPU for gaming (right now your setup is just fine and wouldn't bottleneck a Titan X or 980 ti).
 
Future proofing for when 12GB of VRAM is needed is ridiculous. Get the 980 Ti. By the time 12GB is actually a "thing" - your TITAN X will perform like today's GTX 680. Not bad, but not great.
 
Get the Titan X if you want it, it's a good card, I would suggest getting an after market cooler for it with a backplate because the memory does get pretty hot on it. You wouldn't need to upgrade your rig with just 1 Titan X. But if you're set on upgrading your entire system I would wait for Skylake or Kabylake since you will see atleast a 30-40% performance gain over a 2700k.

But yea a Titan X is a huge performance gain if you're going from a 680.
 
The thing is, when the time comes where more than 6GB of vram is required for a game...
Click to expand...

Realistically, by the time it's a real problem, your card will be years old and the cash you saved will easily buy you a brand-spanking-new top-end card.
 
sk3tch said:
Future proofing for when 12GB of VRAM is needed is ridiculous. Get the 980 Ti. By the time 12GB is actually a "thing" - your TITAN X will perform like today's GTX 680. Not bad, but not great.
Click to expand...

Currently GTA V and Shadow of Mordor @4k ultra settings are both hitting just under 6GB so its not that far away, I understand where you are coming from though. I dont really like SLI setups tbh, but I also was considering getting a new psu and throwing in 2 980 Tis in SLI. I just really prefer the single card setup, since most of the games I play have terrible support multi card setups

kalston said:
You could just get a 980 ti now and see if Skylake finally makes it worth replacing an overclocked Sandy Bridge CPU for gaming (right now your setup is just fine and wouldn't bottleneck a Titan X or 980 ti).
Click to expand...

Thank you, this is what I was looking for :D
 
Lmah2x said:
Get the Titan X if you want it, it's a good card, I would suggest getting an after market cooler for it with a backplate because the memory does get pretty hot on it. You wouldn't need to upgrade your rig with just 1 Titan X. But if you're set on upgrading your entire system I would wait for Skylake or Kabylake since you will see atleast a 30-40% performance gain over a 2700k.

But yea a Titan X is a huge performance gain if you're going from a 680.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the input, I never really messed with an aftermarket cooler for GPUs ( was always afraid to OC GPUs myself because a friend of mine has had terrible success with it haha) What kind of aftermarket cooler would you suggest with the Titan X?
 
I purchased a Titan X about a month before the 980Ti came out and while I am not sweating the purchase, I wish I waited and saved ~$350 buying the Ti. I really love the Titan X performance at 3440X1440 and it smokes the water cooled 290X I was using. If I was buying today, I would find the best 980Ti available, OC it and save at least $300 to use somewhere else. I did put it in a new X99 rig with a 5830K@4.5gHz to replace my 2600K@4.2gHz, but did so more because the upgrade/build new rig bug was assaulting me than any performance deficit I was seeing. Either way you will have fun with a new rig or a new card, best of luck.
 
Sorcerer_Tim said:
I purchased a Titan X about a month before the 980Ti came out and while I am not sweating the purchase, I wish I waited and saved ~$350 buying the Ti. I really love the Titan X performance at 3440X1440 and it smokes the water cooled 290X I was using. If I was buying today, I would find the best 980Ti available, OC it and save at least $300 to use somewhere else. I did put it in a new X99 rig with a 5830K@4.5gHz to replace my 2600K@4.2gHz, but did so more because the upgrade/build new rig bug was assaulting me than any performance deficit I was seeing. Either way you will have fun with a new rig or a new card, best of luck.
Click to expand...

Sounds like you were in the same boat as me haha, At least I am not the only one, I am definitely thinking of going with the Titan X for my current system and see what comes out with Skylake/Kabylake.

Your post definitely helped in my decision making process. and just to clarify do you have the 5820 or the 5930? and about how much did you spend on the x99 rig? Also is your Titan water cooled?
 
I upgraded my main box from a 2600K setup to the current 4790k setup and to be honest - not much if any difference at all in terms of usability. As you stated the only thing gained was PCIE 3.0 and not even sure if that did anything noticeable really. About the only real plus was more sata 3 ports from changing mobos/chipset.

Jumping to X99 might be more noticeable for increased productivity / multimedia / rendering apps with the additional cores but I don't think you'll see much of a difference in day to day stuff.

As for the GPU cooler, I just put on the EVGA backplate and called it a day. I know some guys have modified AIO CPU coolers to fit but I'm not chasing FPS numbers so I don't. If it runs my apps at the speed I'm happy with, that's good enough for me.

BTW: On my 2600k setup, I ran a 780 GTX (vanilla), then 290 then jumped to the Titan X before upgrading the mobo+CPU. Each iteration was run with 2x-4x RAID0 SSD and the SSDs / GPUs made more of a tangible benefit than the chipset/CPU jump did.
 
dvsman said:
I upgraded my main box from a 2600K setup to the current 4790k setup and to be honest - not much if any difference at all in terms of usability. As you stated the only thing gained was PCIE 3.0 and not even sure if that did anything noticeable really. About the only real plus was more sata 3 ports from changing mobos/chipset.

Jumping to X99 might be more noticeable for increased productivity / multimedia / rendering apps with the additional cores but I don't think you'll see much of a difference in day to day stuff.

As for the GPU cooler, I just put on the EVGA backplate and called it a day. I know some guys have modified AIO CPU coolers to fit but I'm not chasing FPS numbers so I don't. If it runs my apps at the speed I'm happy with, that's good enough for me.

BTW: On my 2600k setup, I ran a 780 GTX (vanilla), then 290 then jumped to the Titan X before upgrading the mobo+CPU. Each iteration was run with 2x-4x RAID0 SSD and the SSDs / GPUs made more of a tangible benefit than the chipset/CPU jump did.
Click to expand...

Yea I am basically looking at getting the Titan X and a 512GB Samsung Pro SSD because those seem like the biggest jumps for my current system performance at the moment with my main function being gaming
 
I LOVE my vram as much as anyone else

but 6gb is enough given the current gpu power

take it from someone who's tried 4K, super sampled 3440x1440, 1080p surround, AND 1440p surround - the vram usage curve drops off a ton once you're past 3gb. even going 1440p surround (nearly 12mil pixels), vram usage only eeked up to around 3.8gb average in BF4, while 4K used 3.5gb
 
I'd personally get something like a 980ti classy to hold you over. Then when big pascal and Skylake-e launches do a system revision.
 
Sorry, meant 5820K. About $1,200 all in, but reused a few things. Titan X is not WC, but will probably buy the EVGA Hybrid cooler if they are ever in stock. I have not really messed with OC yet, but will once I get a better cooler. Not looking to go full WC on this rig yet.
 
Dayaks said:
I'd personally get something like a 980ti classy to hold you over. Then when big pascal and Skylake-e launches do a system revision.
Click to expand...

Yea I see what you are saying there, I am just stuck at that point where I want to upgrade, but a load of new tech is right around the corner, I want to utilize DX 12 when windows 10 hits, but then again it may benefit waiting on pascal depending on how well that will perform. I wasnt impressed with AMDs HBM performance tbh, so thats why I was thinking of the Titan, but then again NVIDIA could blow my mind with pascal lol. (plus I prefer NVIDIA and will most likely never go back to AMD)
 
do it man. if you can accept that it is far from the most cost effective choice, it feels great for your e-peen. especially multiples. :D
 
iCrayon said:
Yea I see what you are saying there, I am just stuck at that point where I want to upgrade, but a load of new tech is right around the corner, I want to utilize DX 12 when windows 10 hits, but then again it may benefit waiting on pascal depending on how well that will perform. I wasnt impressed with AMDs HBM performance tbh, so thats why I was thinking of the Titan, but then again NVIDIA could blow my mind with pascal lol. (plus I prefer NVIDIA and will most likely never go back to AMD)
Click to expand...

Pascal they are cutting the node size in half. After that I wouldn't be surprised if GPU % gain pace slowed down like CPUs did. Skylake has PCIe 4.0 and a lot of other crap. Also DDR4 will be more mature.
 
Lmah2x said:
Get the Titan X if you want it, it's a good card, I would suggest getting an after market cooler for it with a backplate because the memory does get pretty hot on it. You wouldn't need to upgrade your rig with just 1 Titan X. But if you're set on upgrading your entire system I would wait for Skylake or Kabylake since you will see atleast a 30-40% performance gain over a 2700k.

But yea a Titan X is a huge performance gain if you're going from a 680.
Click to expand...

Yes, spend $350 too much and then also even more money fixing a problem that doesn't exist. :)

iCrayon said:
Currently GTA V and Shadow of Mordor @4k ultra settings are both hitting just under 6GB so its not that far away, I understand where you are coming from though. I dont really like SLI setups tbh, but I also was considering getting a new psu and throwing in 2 980 Tis in SLI. I just really prefer the single card setup, since most of the games I play have terrible support multi card setups
Click to expand...

I can sit here and pull out very specific, ridiculous use cases where 6GB of VRAM is not enough all day. If those are your use cases for your daily gaming - then by all means spend $1k on a TITAN X.
 
Don't listen to these people. If you think you want a Titan X, get it.
 
Zinn said:
Don't listen to these people. If you think you want a Titan X, get it.
Click to expand...

lol - except he created this thread for that very purpose...to get opinions. Hell, I own two TITAN X. I have no regrets. Doesn't meant that I tell others to do the same. It's good advice to state the 980 Ti is a better value as it provides 99% of the capability of a TITAN X for less cost.

By all means - buy a TITAN X. It's a great card. Just not a great value.
 
My vote is on getting a great SDD (maybe even a 1TB), a 980ti, and save the rest of $ for a next year upgrade.

mobo+CPU will yield meh benefits you can feel. And Titan X will feel meh compared to the 980ti.

Now, this off course will not give you the feeling of having the best! If that is what you are after, then by all means get an I7 Octo Core + Titan X. BTW, I love that feeling, but that is just me. ;-)

I also love the yearly upgrade feeling, and seeing as there is some major tech coming next year. I would stick to the cheaper upgrade at this time.
 
sk3tch said:
Yes, spend $350 too much and then also even more money fixing a problem that doesn't exist. :)
Click to expand...

I didn't mean it that way, but the OP already seemed determined to get the Titan X rather than the 980Ti in the 3rd post because he wanted more VRAM than 6gb.
 
Based on your initial post and a few of the replies in here already, you'll do just fine with a 980ti in your current setup. You can read my sig for my current rig, but it won't tell you about what I upgraded from.

I had a i7-975 processor, 24GB of ram, a single 580 gtx (4GB memory edition) and everything else was pretty standard. The major reason I wanted to do an upgrade was to go from a single monitor setup to surround+1 @ 7680x1440 with 144hz refresh. Just about every game I play currently can handle everything at ultra with a 3-way SLI of titan X's, and I only ended up with titan X's for two reasons. 1) the 980ti's weren't out yet, and 2) go big or go home - I went big on everything else so why the hell not right?

Tying into your post / rig though, if you only want a single card, the only major difference between a 980ti and titan X is the vram. As everyone else has stated, you won't exceed 6GB of vram (save for possibly one or two games) today, and most likely for the next few years, you'll probably be upgrading your card first again prior to worrying about >6 GB of Vram. Now, if you were trying to game at 4k across multiple monitors, that's where a titan X becomes useful (and even then with fps limitations because of DP, or HDMI technology on the cards themselves, playing at 4k on multiple monitors currently isn't the best).

In terms of get a vid card now or a new PC, with your processor being a 2xxx generation, you wouldn't notice much of any difference upgrading the rest of your rig. From Nehalem to Haswell, there hasn't been amazing jumps in performance. Skylake is getting a bit more hype (and it's predominately hype right now). With it being around the corner, I'd wait to see what that has to offer. The pro / con list is pretty simple. Get a new graphics card which will outperform what you have by a long shot today and see what Skylake will do (plus everything it brings to the table with DDR4 ram etc.) - Yes DDR4 vs 3 isn't much but when you start adding up every small thing it does equate to something noticeable. Or, get a new rig now with a titan x with new tech right around the corner. Clearly stating it: New graphics card now, becomes an old card in a new rig later vs getting everything new now and spending more money to do it now (with new tech on the way soon).

Personally, I always advocate buy when you want to buy because something better will always come, but when new tech is RIGHT around the corner, you'll be okay to wait and see for a short time. Besides, if it doesn't deliver, the prior gen tech becomes cheaper!
 
iCrayon said:
The thing is, when the time comes where more than 6GB of vram is required for a game I dont want to buy another card or run SLI. Thanks for the input but I am looking more for opinion of putting that card(or even a 980 ti) into my current system.
Click to expand...
That is not logical. If you are only going to run one card then by the time 6gb is not enough, you will want to upgrade for more performance and features anyway.
 
Back to your original question (buy Titan X for current system, or buy Titan X w/ new system build), I personally would go with the video card only. I agree w/ kalston in that your current setup should be fine for the time being.

If you do decide to build a new rig, the upcoming Skylake release should increase sales of new / recent technology (DDR4 RAM, M.2 SSD, etc.), which hopefully will result in lower prices for those components. That would be my incentive to wait.

FWIW, if I had to build a new X99 rig with a single GPU, I would choose 5820K over 5930K. Besides the cost savings ($390 vs. $580 on newegg), you really shouldn't need more than the 28 PCI lanes found on the 5820K for the single GPU. The extra $190 would buy an additional 12 PCI lanes and a slightly faster clock on the 5930K, which shouldn't be noticeable compared to a 5820K on a single GPU setup.

That's my $0.02.
 
Last edited:
Why would you NOT want to get a second card down the line to SLI?

You can get a 980TI right now and save $350, and then get a used 980TI for the $350 you saved, after the next big card is out...
Titan is a waste of money.
 
As a proud owner of a Titan X, if I was to buy a new card it would be an aftermarket 980 Ti. The Gigabyte G1 most likely.
 
LeninGHOLA said:
980ti.

Titan X is a loser in price/performance metrics.
Click to expand...

Any card over $200 is a loser in price/performance. 280X/290 is king.

If I could turn back the clock and not have this Titan X I would of chosen a 980ti Classy or some aftermarket 980ti with a bios switch on it. Even though I sold my 780ti Classy block months ago, I wouldn't be able to watercool it unless EK made a new block or I found an old one around. My Titan X is quite the performer (1.5 GHz/8 GHz) but I do enjoy what aftermarket cards offer. I considered buying the 980ti Classy as I have around $100 EVGA bucks, but even then it would only satisfy my want for a custom card and not really do much improvement as performance goes. Sadly a 1.5 GHz Titan X is basically a 1.6 GHz 980ti, and I think if I wanted to waste more money at this time it would be spent on a PTR-91 or a SIG-716.
 
iCrayon said:
The thing is, when the time comes where more than 6GB of vram is required for a game I dont want to buy another card or run SLI. Thanks for the input but I am looking more for opinion of putting that card(or even a 980 ti) into my current system.
Click to expand...

People said the same thing with the original Titan.

And.....they were wrong.

Get a 980TI. There is no point, unless you want to throw money away, then by all means get a Titan X.
 
DASHlT said:
People said the same thing with the original Titan.

And.....they were wrong.

Get a 980TI. There is no point, unless you want to throw money away, then by all means get a Titan X.
Click to expand...
Yeah the original Titan was surpassed by the 780 Ti 11 months later. Another 11 months later and even the cheap little 970 was beating the original Titan. And now a 980 ti is nearly twice as fast as the original Titan and with both oced it is twice as fast. And all of that on the same 28nm process. So yeah getting a $1000+ Titan is never future proofing anything. The Titan will fall behind in performance long before the vram will matter.
 
Shogon said:
Any card over $200 is a loser in price/performance. 280X/290 is king.

If I could turn back the clock and not have this Titan X I would of chosen a 980ti Classy or some aftermarket 980ti with a bios switch on it. Even though I sold my 780ti Classy block months ago, I wouldn't be able to watercool it unless EK made a new block or I found an old one around. My Titan X is quite the performer (1.5 GHz/8 GHz) but I do enjoy what aftermarket cards offer. I considered buying the 980ti Classy as I have around $100 EVGA bucks, but even then it would only satisfy my want for a custom card and not really do much improvement as performance goes. Sadly a 1.5 GHz Titan X is basically a 1.6 GHz 980ti, and I think if I wanted to waste more money at this time it would be spent on a PTR-91 or a SIG-716.
Click to expand...

Not when you can get a GTX 980 SC for $230.

http://www.microcenter.com/product/438838/geforce_gtx_980_superclocked_4gb_pcie_video_card
 
aznever said:
Not when you can get a GTX 980 SC for $230.

http://www.microcenter.com/product/438838/geforce_gtx_980_superclocked_4gb_pcie_video_card
Click to expand...

That's a lottery, though. Not in stock at my Microcenter and they probably only had 1-2 cards, anyway.

The 290/290X are consistently and readily available on places like eBay for around $200. AMD cards are in the toilet. I just bought a aftermarket cooled Gigabyte R9 290X for $219 shipped on eBay for my secondary box. Insane bang/buck and none of the classic heat issues related to VRMs/etc.
 
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